Cross-posted (partially) from The Water Cooler at the Washington Times:

On March 2, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Freedom Action honored Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, with what they called the “Coolest Head Award,” for keeping his wits and his cool amidst all the hot air coming from global warming alarmists. Back in 2003, when Global Warming Enthusiasm was on the march as almost an official religion of the cognoscenti, Sen. Inhofe took over the Environment and Public Works Committee and started what seemed like a very lonely, one-man, rear-guard action against cap-and-trade legislation that was expected to eventually make it into law with all the inevitability as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation that had enjoyed similar cachet with “all the right people.” Marshalling actual facts and cogent arguments, what he accomplished, according to CEI’s statement, was that “he won every debate and every vote in the Senate on cap-and-trade legislation-on the Lieberman-McCain bill in 2003; on the McCain-Lieberman bill in 2005; and on the Lieberman-Warner bill in 2008. In the 111th Congress, Senator Inhofe’s opposition was so effective that Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer failed even to bring their cap-and-trade bill to the floor for a vote.”
Also from the CEI release: “There are three remarkable aspects of Senator Inhofe’s steadfast opposition. First, he became familiar with the range of climate science to a degree beyond any other Member of Congress. Second, because he understood that the scientific case for global warming alarmism was incredibly weak, he remained unalterably opposed to all energy-rationing policies and confident that cap-and-trade could be defeated even after many of his conservative colleagues decided that some form of emissions controls were inevitable. While his conservative colleagues began to trim their rhetoric and look for compromise, Senator Inhofe defiantly repeated that global warming alarmism was the biggest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people. Third, Senator Inhofe pursued his opposition to cap-and-trade despite in the face of incredible amounts of abuse and far beyond his own political self interest. To stick your neck out in the way Senator Inhofe has done is a rare thing in politics.” …. [full post at the Water Cooler]

To which, I’ll just add this: The Earth’s ecology is of utmost importance. The world’s oceans must be kept healthy, and its fisheries are endangered in too many places. Reasonable, market-related solutions exist for helping with these causes. Nonsense about the global dangers of manufactured carbon dioxide emissions take the focus away from such important issues, and therefore harm (by indirection) the Earth’s ecology. IMHO.